Editing User Records

This help file applies to an out-of-date version of MainBoss.
The most recent version of MainBoss is MainBoss 4.2.4.
This help file does not exist in MainBoss 4.2.4, but the index for that version can be found here.

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You create or modify user records using the User editor. The usual way to open the editor is to click New User or Edit in the View section of Administration | Users.

Only someone with SQL Server Administration privileges can register new users with SQL Server. You will receive an error message if you try to add a new user but do not have appropriate permissions. The error occurs when you try to Save the new user's record.

The user editor window contains the following:

Details section: Provides general information about the user.

User Name: The name of the user.

Contact: Contact information for this user. The contact information is given by a record in the Contacts table. For more on contacts, see Contacts.

Description: A description of the user (typically the person's real name).

Comments: Any comments you want to associate with the user.

Security Roles section: Specifies security permissions for the user. For more on roles, see Security Roles.

By adding a security role to the user's list of roles, you give the user all security permissions associated with that role. Each role record has a "Comments" field explaining what permissions are associated with the role.

A user may have any number of assigned security roles. We expect that most people will have multiple security roles.

If you assign someone a "full" permission, you don't have to assign a "view" permission too. For example, if you assign someone the WorkOrder role (permission to edit work orders), you don't have to assign WorkOrderView (permission to view work orders) since WorkOrder automatically implies WorkOrderView. Similarly, "view" permissions automatically imply "summary" permissions; for example, WorkOrderSummary isn't necessary if someone already has WorkOrderView.

We recommend that you be generous in assigning people "summary" roles (e.g. UnitSummary) since these provide a small amount of information that is useful for people performing many different jobs within your organization.

Important: If a user has no assigned security roles, that person will not be able to use MainBoss in any way. Therefore, you should normally assign at least one security role to each user.

After you assign security roles to a user, MainBoss makes it easy to test the effects of those security roles. For more, see the description of Evaluate Security As in Viewing Users.

New User Security Role: Opens a window which lets you specify a new role for this user. For more information, see Assigning Security Roles to Users.

Edit/View: This drop-down button offers several possible actions:

Edit: Opens an editor window to let you edit the selected record.

View: Opens an editor window where you can examine the selected record.

Delete: Removes the assigned security role from this user.

Refresh: Updates the list to reflect any recent changes.

Search: Lets you search through the list of records for a particular record. For more information, see Searching for a Particular Record. The Search button has an accompanying drop-down list containing the following:

Find Next: Uses the same search condition(s) as your most recent search and finds the next record in the table that matches the condition(s). If the search reaches the end of the table without finding a matching record, it goes to the start of the table and continues the search.

Find Previous: Same as Find Next except that it goes backward in the table. If the search reaches the start of the table without finding a matching record, it goes to the end of the table and continues the search.

Advanced section: Options for advanced users.

Scope Name: The name of the user's domain or computer. We strongly recommend that this be left blank, in which case MainBoss accepts access under the given login name from any domain or computer.

Save: Saves the current record. The editor window stays open in case you want to make more changes to the same record.

Save & New: Saves the current record and sets up the window for you to enter a new record. Fields in the new record will be blank or set to default values.

Save & Close: Saves the current record and closes the editor window.

Cancel: Closes the window without saving any changes you've made to the record since the last time you saved. When you Save the record, the Cancel button changes to Close, indicating that you can safely close the window without losing any changes.

Close: Closes the window. This button only appears after you've saved changes with Save or before you've entered any data at all. Otherwise, the button is labeled Cancel.

Scopes: When creating a new user, you have the opportunity to specify a scope for that person's login name.

• If your site uses trusted domains, the scope should be the trusted domain to which the user belongs.
• If your site doesn't use trusted domains (or if you aren't sure whether you use them or not), we strongly recommend leaving the "Scope Name" field blank. A blank scope field means that the given login name is a valid account on the computer where SQL Server runs. SQL Server will then accept access from any other computer in your local network, provided that the login name and password on the other computer match the name and password on the Server computer.
  
  For example, suppose you authorize jsmith to use MainBoss and leave "Scope Name" blank. Then the Server computer must accept jsmith as a login name. SQL Server will accept access from any other jsmith in your local network, provided the password for jsmith on non-Server computers is the same as the password for jsmith on the Server computer.

Note that the names in MainBoss's Users list must be individual login names; they can't be groups. In MainBoss, login names are associated with records in order to create an audit trail. This is why MainBoss itself doesn't accept group authorizations—an audit should record exactly who made a particular change, which means tracking the individual login name, not just a group name.

For more on users and groups, see Users. For more on viewing user/groups, see Viewing Users. For more on editors in general, see Using Editors.

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